Glass Planet Vector Illustration – Adobe Illustrator Tutorial

Build this AWESOME Glass Planet from scratch in this Adobe Illustrator tutorial!
We’ll create line art from simple shape tools and a little pathfinder work and then build out gradients using a custom palette of colors to build out a really cool looking piece of artwork!

Add blue/cyan gradient to both other wave shapes and adjust angles as needed

Select the crescent shape overlay, fill with white, set to Overlay and 20% opacity

Select the “LowYellow” layer, turn it on, bring it in front of everything else and fill with yellow/light yellow gradient at 135º (light yellow should be top left), set to Hard Light @ 80% opacity. Tweak gradient stops to get a small yellow highlight in bottom right of planet

Select the “Base” layer and use the last two pink swatches to create a gradient fading from pink to 0% transparent, adjust angle so it’s in bottom right corner, set to Hard Light at 55%

Select both outer ring paths and subtract front with Pathfinder

Fill with a pale pink, set to Overlay and move this border ring shape to the very back

Drag “Shine” layer to the top and fill with a white to transparent gradient, set to Overlay an opacity that looks good (45%-ish)

Select both small moon shapes on the ring and sample the gradient we used in the larger front-most moon and set it so the pink is on the bottom and the blue gradient color stop is at 10% opacity and set the shapes to Screen blend mode

Select both ring shapes and swap fill/stroke and subtract front to knock out the middle

Move this shape all the way to the front

Fill with Pink/Gray gradient at about 125º (pink in front, gray behind planet) and set this to Color Dodge blend mode

Select one of the ellipse paths and copy it and use as a mask to make the ring that drops “behind” the planet almost invisible

Duplicate the ring, set to Screen blend mode, drop the gray color stop to 0% opacity and tweak the spread color stops to make it look good

Duplicate the front-most ring and move +75 on the Y axis and fill with just the flat pink used in the ring

Copy one of the ellipses and create a mask so this ring can be like a shadow for under the actual ring

Set to Multiply blend mode and 25% opacity

Select both stroke highlights on the planet and set to a 20pt stroke w/ rounded caps, set stroke color to white and 85% opacity

Select all the outer star and raindrop shapes and fill with white or cyan and set to Overlay

Select any small ellipses and fill with the same gradient as the top left moon and rotate so green is on bottom and yellow on top(set to 0% transparency) and set to Color Dodge blend mode

Duplicate one of those little ellipses and drag it over the waves and set to Screen blend mode

Duplicate a bunch of times to create a texture

Double click the Magic Wand tool and tick on the option to select like objects only with the same blend mode and select all the shapes we created

Duplicate them and size them down and spread these smaller dots around a little

Duplicate 3-4 dots and make these larger and position them all over the wave

Select all these shapes and reduce the opacity to 20%

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Nathaniel Dodson: I am a young web designer and commercial photographer specializing in music, business, and athlete portraiture. I am a young and energetic individual who has been working in the design and creative field since I first started dabbling with Photoshop in year 2000.